Onwards and Upwards
by Renning
Summary: After a sudden visit from Jeb and a man called Vlad Masters, the Flock is put on yet another world-saving mission. But this one is different, as they are sent out to attend a school undercover in a small town called Amity Park to investigate. Meanwhile, Danny is growing suspicious about the upscale in disappearances. And what does the group of new students have to do with it?


_(A/N): This takes place roughly after the Flock's return after their art museum trip in FANG. Sentences for this chapter are based off of the original book's, but not copied word by word, because not only would that be boring but I would also get copyrighted and this FanFiction would be taken down._

 _As for Danny Phantom, it's pretty between when Vlad is made mayor of Amity Park and at least before Dani. Not that I have anything against her, just adding her into this crossover might complicate everything too much._

 _I'm going to try and mimic Max's POV style, so it might be a bit choppy since it's rather different from my own. I hope you enjoy regardless!_

* * *

 **.:Max:.**

 **Sometimes I didn't know what Angel was thinking.** Scratch that—I _never_ knew what Angel was thinking. Mind-reading was an ability only for Angel herself, among the many ones that the girl seemed to have.

But currently, I was questioning the six-year old's motives. Here I was, rocking myself on a hammock and a book propped up on my chest. A book that Dr. G-H, some freakish scientist, had delightfully written. A book that Angel had called "interesting" after handing it to me for some light reading.

At first I had skimmed through, eyes only catching onto the colorfully printed pictures of diagrams and DNA chains. Despite having an idea of the inner workings of this unfortunately genius but still nut job scientist, curiosity ended up getting the best of me so I forced myself to slow down and read what Dr. Scary had to say.

One afternoon, popcorn being thrown across the room from Iggy and Gazzy who were watching TV, and four full chapters read later I was already contemplating snapping the book close and tossing it out of the window. And that would be a very long drop, considering that we lived on the side of a cliff.

And that's really saying something, there's not a lot of things in this world that can unnerve a bird-mutant kid like me. Yup, you heard correctly—2% avian and 98% human, with a pair of handy dandy wings slapped on my back. Me and the rest of the fellow bird-kids, my Flock, we've been chased around by mutated wolves, robots, evil scientists, greedy fathers, evil scientists, teachers, and did I mention evil scientists?

So why the heck was some flimsy book with a paperback cover freaking me out so much?

 _Perhaps burning it will do the trick,_ my morbid, but very agreeable mind provided as I watched my toes play with the strings of the hammock. _Just toss it straight into the fire, stab it with a poker. Or nabbing some explosives from two very certain Flock members and toying them to the hated book would work. No, how about-_

"Max?" I looked up. Fang, looking as utterly amazing as ever. He walked over before plopping down right next to me on the mattress, his dark hair tickling the side of my cheek.

Fang was a fellow member of our humble Flock. Loyal, we stick together through thick and thin. Well, I'll admit it, we've had our ups and downs. All close people had them right? Fang and I, we were nothing more than just very very close people-

Shameless heat involuntarily spread through me when I suddenly realized how close we were. Alright, fine. Maybe our relationship was _bit_ more than only platonic. Thoughts-both the innocent and more naughty ones I was grateful Angel wasn't in the same room as us for filled my head.

"What are you doing?"

"Reading this book Angel was reading." I rose the cover slightly, enough for him to see it. The blush on my face wasn't very visible, or at least I hoped. "I'm worried that Dr. G-H did something to her."

Or worse, the idea of Angel and that freakish doctor buddying up. Horrifying, and not to mention completely repulsive. Ugh. Can you imagine them doing something like playing checkers or cards with each other or something? Oh, that would be an interesting conversation: "Hey, Angel, I want to do experiments and rip you apart for the "sake" of the world. Do you have a nine?"

"Is it an interesting read?" He rolled over closer than he already was to read the words scripted on the book. I had to force another red hot flush down before I could respond. Stupid, stupid mind.

"It's more scary than anything." I murmured. "One moment he is all about saving the earth and that mankind had destroyed it and how we can fix everything but the next he is raving on about how humans should "change" to assure survival. Like all humans shouldn't be even fully human, he wants everyone to have mutated genes and to be a hybrid."

"I mean, look at this!" I waved the book, reading it out loud. " _'Humanity may carry wit beyond the rest of the animal kingdom, but in reality that is our only weapon. We lack the agility and speed of a hare, strength and sheer power of a lion, cannot swim like an otter or fly like a bird. To summarize, we are weak in the outside. But using our greatest weapon, intelligence, we could create attributes that would assure survival and endurance. We will become beyond our mere human shells…'_ He's a complete nut job!"

"So how does he plan to go through with it all?" Fang asked. "As in trying to mutate all of humanity?"

I grimaced. "He goes around asking people to help him. He asks for help from anyone, ranging from scientists and volunteers to people who have no clue of what they are actually doing and even children. Then he uses his freaky science stuff to "make them beyond a mere human"," I pause, my mind drifting back to the times of being in the School, the place that I was created and the place that we had all escaped from. Memories of scaled rashes and deformed tails flashed before me. Those people had been the less fortunate than us, where the injections didn't work and their body ended as a mutilated mess. Death was a blessing to their short-lived, painful life. "But not everyone can be a success…"

"Mistakes. Ones that could potentially ruin his entire career." Fang said. He must know too. "And he doesn't want anyone to see them. He has to hide them."

I feel sick at hearing his words, but nodded. They had no use for the failures, most of the time they would simply die on their own. I refused to consider the obvious thought that the whitecoats would "dispose" of those fighting to survive.

"Thinking of any way we could stop him? Get some evidence, something to use against him?" Fang asked.

I shrugged. "Well, the Internet has never failed us before…"

But it was a lost cause. Others, like us, must have grown suspicious as well. Since he was still prancing around, chainless and free, their searches clearly came up with nothing.

Despite this, we found ourselves in front of that fancy computer we nabbed a while ago. Even with my growing hopelessness, I couldn't help but feel curious. Who was Dr. Gunther-Hagen to the rest of the world?

With several clicks and key taps and we are searching through the inner webs with the handy help of Google for more information for this mad scientist. Dr. Scary is apparently rather popular around the Internet, with nearly 300,000 hits.

Some of the things we find are humorous, such as a grainy picture of schoolboy him posing for a picture. He looked ridiculous, and had an awful lot more hair then he did now which causes me to laugh hysterically. But some are more unnerving, a recent looking picture of him wearing a sharp suit as he shakes hands with an equally important looking man with silvery hair who looked as snide as him.

By page thirty of our search results we come across a rather dodgy looking link. We clicked it, waited for the thing to load. Fifteen seconds of pure white screen and I was beginning to wonder whether it was a dead link or not when it cleared up and I felt my eyes pop out of their sockets.

I immediately recognized the logo broadly branded across the screen. The Institute for Higher Living, the place where we busted into for information of our families. Where we freed several mutants, met that other Flock. The place where we got Total, our talking Scottish Terrier. Another laboratory.

I haven't heard from them for a long time. In fact, I thought they had just suddenly disbanded or something after our intense break-in. But sitting on the screen, several username and password boxes on it as well, was a confirmation that they were still running rampant. And Dr. G-H had something to do with it. No surprise.

Fang and I glanced at each other. We had to find a way in. And luckily, we already our own source.

"Nudge?" I called for the girl and she quickly came over. Nudge was our official computer hacker of our relatively small group, with a talent for being able to crack the code of anything. This website wouldn't stand a chance against her.

But it did prove to be a rather formidable force for even Nudge. Ten minutes of flashing screens and stringing lines of a mixture of letters and numbers that I couldn't understand and even I could tell that Nudge was having a difficult time with it. It took several more minutes and loud clicks before she let out a triumphed cry alerting us that she had broken in.

It took even longer for us to waft through the complicated layout of the website and drag up pages that were even relevant to what we were looking for. Ones that possibly had Dr. G-H's hand in it.

And I didn't like what we found.

 _Morbid Effects of Autoantibodies on Rodents_

 _Autoimmune Toxicity in Systemic Viral Experimentation on Chimpanzees_

 _Abnormal Cell Differentiation from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Experimentation_

 _Cancerous Effects of Viral Reprogramming of iPSCs in Human Adults_

 _Defective Apoptotic Processes and Cell Proliferation in iPSC_

 _Experimentation on Human Children_

My stomach flip-flopped as I processed the scientific language. I didn't understand most of it, but I knew enough to get an idea of what they were about. Nassau and bile in my throat rose as those small pixelated words that read _human children_ glared at me from behind the screen.

All Fang and I could do was blankly stare at the computer, still having yet to do anything. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do anything.

Slowly, I moved to click on the first document. It was as if I had clicked on something from an alien world, all of this scientific stuff was completely indecipherable to us.

"I feel like I'm reading Latin." Fang muttered. We still had yet to go to the next page when we hadn't even figured out the first one.

"Latin would be much easier then this," I said before something caught my eye. "But do you see those small references at the bottom of these texts? They are referring to "figure one" and "figure two" and so on. Do you know what that means?"

"There's some pictures in this mess." Fang said, and I nodded before we launched right into our search for the elusive photographs.

It took much longer than I expected, the entire PDF file was huge. We finished the rodent file first, not wanting to go any further after seeing at least hundreds of pictures of brutally mutated little mice that would most likely drive Nudge to tears. But we rather reluctantly learned something as according to the file, autoantibodies would violently pit your own body against itself, causing your own immune system to start killing the actual useful stuff.

I unconsciously set my hand over my stomach, as if to ensure my own health even though I would have no way to tell by that simple action before we jumped to the next file.

We didn't get far with the chimpanzee file either, this time not even touching the pictures. The few sentences that we were able to read easily alerted us of what was coming ahead, which was heavily connected to the effects the rodents had with autoantibodies. I really didn't want to see the poor animals' suffering in full color, so we quickly skipped to the next file on the list.

As for the next three files, they were all linked together as the rodent and chimpanzee files had been. They both depicted the effects of abnormal cell growth, which was the rapid growth of cells, the badly "written" ones. In other words, a free for all for sicknesses like cancer to run rampant in your body.

It was nothing less than disturbing of what we came across, heavily detailed pictures of grotesque limbs and bulging inflated muscles. Purple eyelids swelling over barely visible eyes and twisted bodies in shapes I never even believed were possible. Fang's face was hard set as he continued to click through, as if he were trying to mentally block his emotions through.

Raw, bloodied pictures of cracked pores and spotted red rashes criss-crossing the once smooth skin. Mutilated effects on skin. That was enough for me to stand, walk away from the computer for a short time, try to stop those images from flashing across my burning eyes.

But I understood enough. Enough to see the disgusting effects the experiments had brought, and the lengths that Dr. G would go.

That this man hid under the guise of his genius to conceal a complete mad man. And he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

"There is one more file." Fang said after a long silence. And I knew which one it was.

Silently, we clicked on the blue link of _Experimentation on Human Children._

I steeled my courage as we quickly swept through the spanning pages, my mouth having gone dry. I knew what to expect this time, and I could literally hear my heart thundering through my ears as we swept past another page, one that I knew would be the last.

And then it stopped.

What met us was not a constant stream of images of tortured failures and their mutated flesh, agonized expressions and small limbs stretched beyond recognition. Not the graphics that I had been dreading with fear.

Instead there were aisles of mugshots of children, their smiling faces looking completely out of place from what I had seen earlier. Underneath each picture was a scrawled name of each child and several additional notes regarding them.

I leaned closer and squinted at the small text. Whoever had typed the files clearly had no regard for the people in the future that would be reading it. "What is this?" I whispered, mainly to myself. Off to the side, Fang who was also looking carefully at each child, shrugged.

A chill ran through my spine as I pressed my face nearly against the screen. It was information on each child, but didn't stop at the basics such as name, gender, etc.. It carried exact pinpoints detailing the person, ranging from personal illnesses to even sport curriculums they had joined. Security numbers, their interests, where they lived. Dr. Scary had officially upgraded (or downgraded) to Dr. Stalker.

But regardless of how freakishly creepy it all was, I was still confused. Why would they stalk a bunch of kids and gather so much information of each one, but not do anything? Mind you, I was grateful that all of these children weren't at the hand of suffering. But it was bizarrely unlike the cruel nature of the Institute and Dr. G.

We left the photographs and retreated back to the texts that we had previously skimmed through. " _'...the side effects remain disclosed, but appear to be not openly displayed on the outer layers. This works in favor, as the subjects remain unknowledgeable.'_ Fang, what does that mean?"

Fang laid his head on his crossed hands. "I don't know exactly, but I have an idea. I'm guessing that they are experimenting on the children, who unlike their previous people are completely oblivious to what is happening to them."

"So they are doing all this stuff to people who have no clue of what is going on?" I said, anger rising in my chest. That was illegal for sure. I could tell where these scientists were going on this path, and it repulsed me "They might try and make another School in this town, using all of those kids that end up as successes…if they haven't already."

Fang nodded. "That's at least what I think is going on. If this goes on, they might try and start a base there. What's the next page?"

"That's it. It just all ended right there." I said. "Looks like this is still a work-in-progress for them, it's still being updated." It also meant that those creeps were continuing with their experiments on children as we even spoke.

"How do you think they are doing it?" Fang suddenly said, and I looked up. "How they are injecting all of this stuff into them I mean. Some guys can't just go around and stab people with a needle you know."

Fang was right. That was a large question. And an important one too.

The rest of the information proved to be useless to us, only providing the potential effects that the experiments could do and some more scientific garble we didn't have the faintest clue meant, giving us no leads. "Let's go back to the pictures," I suggested.

A careful brush through the photos made me notice something. Many kids shared the exact same street addresses, some even living right next to each other. A coincidence? Not when evil scientists were involved here.

We copy-pasted one of the street addresses into the search bar and quickly discovered Google Maps was our best friend in this situation. I clicked on of the buildings that were near the street we had looked up.

"Casper High," Fang said slowly. "A high school in Amity Park."

Just to make sure, we also searched up the other most common streets in the pictures. Zooming out on the map software revealed that even those same streets were close together, all in the same city.

"So they're only experimenting in a certain area?" I said, eyes glued to the screen.

It made sense and it also didn't. Them focusing on one area allowed them to gather more information and be able to experiment even more on all those people. They could easily keep track of what they are doing and their lab rats.

But at the same time, they would also lose information and data they were collecting if they only stayed at one place. Knowing the insane mind of these scientists, the mind of Dr. G-H, they wouldn't want to only experiment on people that would bring the same data. What are the effects on people who lived in high pollution? People who live out in the wilderness? Scientists loved variety, and this method just seemed like a complete shift from their usual ways.

What made Amity Park so special?

Searching for it over the Internet provided depressingly low results. Of all towns and cities in the world, Dr. G had to choose the one that housed barely seven hundred citizens? Wait, no. That was probably their intention from the start, to choose the smallest town they could find so they could work in private and put more focus on each individual person.

The incomplete Wikipedia page did give us some info, however. "Vlad Masters? The mayor of Amity Park?" Fang read. "Why does that name seem familiar?"

It also held some familiarity to me as well, and that was saying something. I didn't keep up with the modern world, no one here did. No usage in it when the only thing you were focusing on was trying to find your next meal. Even when living in a much more luxurious state as we were now, we never got into the habit of staying up to date.

A quick Google search gave us far more hits then our Amity Park one ever did. A multi-billionaire. One of the richest people to stand on this planet. Head of leading businesses that were planted around the world. Perhaps that's how I knew his name, from seeing it planted on a sign or something like that when we flew over different countries.

I narrowed my eyes. Call it a stereotype but in my personal experiences, most rich guys like this weren't up to any good. This silver-haired guy could-

Wait a minute. Silver-hair. My mind rolled back to the image I had seen earlier. A silver-haired guy shaking hands with Dr. G…

Mayor of targeted town? Partnering with Dr. Stalker? Scratch what I was going to say earlier-this guy is _completely_ up to no good.

I turned to Fang, who also seemed to have put two and two together. "Bingo." I found myself saying, a smile crossing over my face.

It was small, but I knew we had a solid lead now.

* * *

 **It was my birthday today.** It was also Iggy's birthday today too. And Fang's, and Gazzy's, and…alright you get it. It was all of our birthdays today.

After my rather spontaneous announcement to stop all that arguing earlier that I was indeed turning 15, the others had also decided that they were turning the next numeral of their age as well. Honestly, I had no clue how old I was. You sorta lost track after being on the run because you're a mutant bird kid.

That didn't really matter though. I found myself grinning so widely my cheeks felt like splitting and running around like a little kid. It was fun, able to calm down, stop worrying about everything and act like a normal person your age would.

Well, I didn't know about the last one. I didn't really know if normal people my age would continually stuff piles of cake and fudge in their mouth, enough to put us all in a sugar-induced coma later on.

I was lightheaded with giddiness as we exchanged each other's presents. By the time Gazzy announced he wanted to give our present on the roof, I felt like I didn't even have to fly up there on my own, simply float up in this cloud of joy (and probably sugar as well).

Gazzy lit the fireworks, and each of us watched as they exploded in the sky in a shower of brilliant blue sparks above us. We all oohed and aahed, watching as they drifted down and somehow was able to resemble the letter M.

But something felt off. I couldn't put it, but it sent my instincts riling. Below the chatter and cheers of my flock, drifting up to our house.

I swore it sounded like an engine.

I looked around, just as Gazzy lit the firework that would represent Fang. The sky lit up in a bright orange, enough to illuminate that old logging road we never used, enough to show a sleek black Jeep steering up to our house…

"Flock!" I announced. They had sensed it too, and were already on their knees, hidden. "We have company."

The car steadily drove up to our house and we remained crouched in the shadows, hopefully obscured from anyone below us. "There might be a chance that it's just lost," Fang said softly. "Trying to go somewhere else."

Pitch black car. Slowly slinking up to us. A likely story. This brought up bad memories of when the Erasers had attacked our old house a while back. When they forced us to be on the run since. I snorted. "Yeah. Sure. It's probably the Easter Bunny, or Santa Clause and they just got lost in their way to the North Pole."

Everyone could feel it. The change in the air, like static running down our backs. Something large was going to happen, and I had the faint feeling that we weren't going to like it.

"Alright guys," I whispered lowly, trying to ignore the ebbs of my paranoia. "Let's fan out. Hide as high as you can in the trees, check the skies for choppers, make sure the Jeep's sunroof doesn't open. When I give the signal, we all attack. Aim for the windows. Try to break them."

Everyone nodded, a look of determination on their faces. I only hoped that I didn't fail them all.

We crept to the other side of the roof as silently as possible. My heart was beating so fast, breaths coming in short. I couldn't believe this was even happening. We had only been here for a week…

My muscles coiled, about to spring before Angel narrowed her eyes, her head cocking to the side. "Wait, Max. I think it's Jeb."

"Jeb?" Nudge repeated faintly.

Angel nodded. "Yup, it's him. We don't have to attack him, so we?"

Inwardly, I groaned loudly. Jeb was currently claiming that he was on our side right now, and do note that I say currently. He constantly shifted between playing nice and being bad guy for the day, enough to make my head spin.

"Is he alone?" I asked. Angel paused before shaking her head slightly.

"No. He's with another person." Angel frowned slightly. "At least I think so. I'm having trouble reading them for some reason."

"Great." I sighed. Let's see who Jeb decided to be today. Doe-eyed and wearing a hero's cape draped over his back or head of an organization working on a Doomsday device 2.0. "Fine. We won't attack him. But we'll keep an eye on him and that other person he's with. Is it my mom?" I asked, hopeful. If my mom was with him, the chances of him doing any funny stuff would drop dramatically.

Angel shook her head. "No, sorry."

The Jeep drove up beneath us, stopping at the base of our house. I jumped down lightly to meet it, quickly scanning over the house to make sure that the ladder wasn't left swung down for any reason, as there were only two ways to get in: flying, or the ladder that we let down by choice.

The driver door opened and Jeb climbed out. My eyes narrowed. At one point, this man had been the literal ideal father figure, a mentor to me and the Flock. But now, all I felt around him was wariness and worry, even after I discovered he was my actual biological father.

"Jeb," I greeted evenly, not caring of the coldness that seeped into my voice. "I'm guessing that my mom told us where we were?" Despite everything, my mother still held trust in Jeb. And I trusted my mother. That was the only thing that stopped me from having my way, Gazzy diving under the Jeep and rigging a detonator.

"Yes," Jeb said. "She's getting everything set up right now. We have another mission for you."

Just after he spoke, the other car door swung open. And out stepped a man in a black suit, hair tied up behind his head…

I found myself staring into the eyes of Vlad Masters.

* * *

 **Even if I didn't know better,** I would have immediately been able to tell that this man is an object of suspicion. Fancy suit and that small smirk and a sneering expression. Not radiating a sense of superiority or even arrogance, but just looking shifty overall.

The rest of the flock slowly fluttered down, looking cautious. Most of the time, we rarely revealed our wings to strangers. But if said person was with Jeb, there was a large chance that they already knew everything.

"Guys, this is Vlad Masters. He will be heavily involved in what we need you to do." Jeb introduced. While the rest of the Flock mumbled polite greetings-albeit still sounding wary, which was natural-Fang and I only stayed silent, exchanging glances.

Angel smiled brightly. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Masters."

Having Jeb come up here and with yet another mission for us was enough, but bringing up the buddy of Mr. G-H?, possible apocalypse bringer? Wonderful, just lovely.

 _Max, this world isn't in just shades of black and white like you seem to think._ I almost jumped. The Voice had a knack for coming in at the most unexpected times. _Give them a chance and hear them out._ _The situation they are in might surprise you._

 _No one asked you, Voice!_ I mentally snarled. It seemed like the Voice was trying its hardest to annoy me.

It sounded as if the Voice sighed. _Just try and understand, Max._

Understand? What was there to understand? That this guy only meant trouble? I knew enough. Stupid Voice.

"How about that we go inside for now? I'll explain everything." Jeb said.

Let potential enemies into house? No way. "No, I don't think so." I said, just at the same time as Fang said evenly "Yes, we'll bring the ladder down."

We both stared at each other. At first I was shocked by what Fang had said, considering what he knew of the man, but his dark eyes looked calculating. He had an idea, and I decided to trust him.

"Alright. Fine." I said simply, shrugging.

I whipped my wings out before anyone could respond and with several wing strokes I took to the air. It turned out my theory of Vlad already knowing about the wings from Jeb was correct, as the man seemed completely unsurprised as I ascended higher.

I landed on the balcony set up before beginning to untie the ladder. "I am so going to regret this…" I mumbled to myself before dropping it down.

* * *

 **I've done many things,** ranging from diving into hurricanes to sleeping with the falcons. But having tea with Evil Guy Suspect #13 was new.

I sipped at the liquid, ignoring the fact that I was holding the teacup completely wrong. Was it pinky-in or pinky-out? Who cared even? Not only that, but I had also fully mastered the arts of pretending-to-be-calm-when-inwardly-your-just-freaking-out-oh-God-what-do-I-do. I was already getting the hang of this!

Bitterness filled my mouth and I resisted the urge to grimace. Ugh, the tea tasted awful. Looking around, the adults in the room and even the rest of the Flock seemed to be faring perfectly fine. Either nine-year old Gazzy had a much higher tolerance then old lady me, or my tastebuds were just screwed up.

"So," I started, trying to sound casual as I lunged for a slice of cake to wash the sour taste out of my mouth. Once upon a time, it was Jeb himself who had planned these parties for us. Now with strewn balloons and present wrappers from the remains of our party easily visible, I hoped him seeing our independence hurt him as much as possible. "What brings you here?"

"I missed you guys." Jeb said with a flash of a smile. My eyes narrowed. That was a lie. I knew him too well. "I just wanted-"

"What's the real reason your here, Jeb?" I butted in.

Jeb sighed. "Fine. I have another task for you guys to do. A mission, you could say."

A fork carrying delicious cake to my mouth paused midway. "Another one? What, does this one concern the fate of the whole world again?"

"No, but it concerns the fate of many lives." Jeb responded coolly. "An entire city, actually. But if we don't act now, it will put the rest of the world at major jeopardy."

In other words, still another world-saving mission. We've done those before. "So what exactly do you want us to do?" I asked, privy. What would it be? Bashing into the HQ of secret organizations? Tackling robo armies in the east?

Jeb only nodded to Vlad, who placed his cup into the saucer before speaking. "I need you to go to a certain town and investigate. There are certain…events happening there. Under the guise of normal school children, of course." Vlad said, fixating us with a piercing stare.

I blinked. I didn't exactly expect that. I was expecting something more…risk-taking. Explosive. "What type of "events"?" I asked, despite having a faint feeling that I already knew.

Vlad spun an ornamental spoon in his tea. "Something is causing the people of this town, children especially, to become ill. Normally, we would have someone else to investigate this, such as the police perhaps. But the circumstances are slightly different from usual criminal affairs."

The man reached into his pocket and withdrew a paper folder. He placed it on the table neatly before pushing it towards us.

I lifted the manila folder and slowly opened it. Inside were several sleek objects-photographs I immediately recognized from the texture as I took them out, before I saw the contents on them.

I heard the Flock behind me rustle uncomfortably, Nudge giving an audible gasp. Even Iggy seemed to get that there was something wrong before Gazzy could explain the pictures in a frightened voice. I tried to stop my hands from shaking and only could stare mutely at the images.

"As you can most likely see," Vlad said, voice completely leveled. "This isn't exactly the most normal of sicknesses. In fact, I wouldn't ever classify it as such."

Remember those pictures from before? The ones that Fang and I saw on the Institute website? Yeah, they had absolutely nothing on these ones. These showed bloodied feathers sprouting out of veiny arms, clumps of rotting scales crisscrossing over a young child's face. Claws violently breaking through shrunken hands, even extra pairs of bloodshot eyeballs poking out.

 _Mutants,_ my numb mind registered. _They're trying to make more mutants._

The cake didn't taste as sweet anymore. Rancid, in fact, like I had swallowed a liter of poison. My stomach curled inwardly, threatening to hurl.

"How did you get these pictures?" I heard Iggy say lowly from behind me. Most likely Gazzy had finished explaining it all, and even without sight he was completely unnerved.

"Their bodies were found dumped in a local river." Vlad responded simply. "Whoever had done this to them clearly had lost any need for them anymore."

The failures. My mind flashed back to earlier, my conversation with Fang.

 _"Mistakes. Ones that could potentially ruin his entire career. And he doesn't want anyone to see them. He has to get hide them."_

And that is exactly what he did. He hid them by dumping them all into a river.

But it was confusing. These pictures, disgusting as they are, are useful and important information to Dr. G-H and the Institute. Why hadn't they been on the file we saw earlier?

"Does the public know of this?" Fang, by my side, asked. His voice was completely unwavering. He was probably wondering the same thing I was.

Vlad shook his head lightly. "Of course not."

I found myself furious at his words. "And why not?" I snapped, and everyone turned to me with a surprised expression. I ignored them. "They should know! You can't just let these guys continue doing this to innocent people! Aren't you the mayor of this town? The public had the right to know!"

Vlad's eyes flashed. "I don't exactly recall mentioning that I am the mayor of the town." He said smoothly, but with a hint of suspicion and reproach in his voice.

I froze. Me and my big mouth! The Flock was giving me a curious look, side from Fang who looked as nonchalant as usual.

"But to answer your question," Vlad only continued without missing a beat. "The reason for that is not only because the uproar it would cause, but the fact that whoever is doing this would just move on and we would miss our opportunity to stop them before they went after even larger places."

"Move on?" I repeated.

Vlad nodded. "Put yourself in the mind of whoever is doing this. You can clearly see from the photographs that they would stop at nothing to accomplish whatever they are aiming for, so why not simply move to the next town after your current one has stopped providing what you needed? They can't be caught; they leave no evidence or links from what we have right now."

He was right. Knowing Dr. G-H, that sick creep, he wouldn't just simply give up at his first town. He would keep going and going, up until he was finally caught. And with the little evidence they had, who knows how long that would take? How many lives would be lost town after town?

He picked his teacup back up. "As much as I detest doing so, we must allow them to continue. Them staying at one town will allow us to gradually gather information and rule out suspects over time, but if they moved on we would have to start our efforts all over. Right back to square one."

"So where do we come in?" I asked. I didn't exactly like the sound of where this was going.

This time, Jeb spoke. "You are to go to that town and investigate under the guise of being normal, as Vlad said earlier. Try and get to the root of what is going on."

"So we get to be like secret agents?" Gazzy said excitedly.

Jeb smiled. "In a way. Just without all the laser guns you see in the movies."

But I still wasn't completely convinced. "Why can't you just call the police to investigate instead? A group of kids isn't exactly practical."

"Official authorities have much less experience in this type of scenario than you do. We have to be able to get to the bottom of everything has quickly as we can." Jeb responded with a slight shake of his head.

"Not only that, but we have reason to believe that even the government could be associated with what is happening. Going to the police would only alert the person we are looking for." Vlad continued.

Like how you are associated with Dr. G-H? I found myself thinking. But I didn't voice it out loud and only said "Fine then. What exactly to you want us to do there?"

"We need you to go to the school that is mainly being targeted and act as normal children there. This will-"

"So you want us to be bait?" I immediately assumed, my temper rising.

Jeb rose his hands. "No, no! Of course not. If you were to go to the school itself, you would be able to gather more informational efficiently and without suspicion. The last thing we need is for our suspect to know who you guys are."

But that was exactly the problem. They didn't know, but Dr. Stalker was the prime suspect, right before Mr. Masters himself. And both of them already knew we had huge wings stamped on our backs.

"So what do you think?" Jeb asked. "Will you take the risks?"

I looked around at my Flock. Gazzy looked ecstatic, Angel looked thoughtful, Nudge looked curious, Iggy looked wary, and Fang…well, he looked like Fang.

But they all held the same glint in their eyes. Fire, one that even my overly-protective self couldn't hold them back from. They all wanted to help, understanding the situation well.

What did I feel about this, you may ask? Well, I thought this was insane, risky, probably will get us all killed, and scary all at the same time. And I most certainly was not ready to save the world again.

I couldn't deny that I felt the same way as the rest of the Flock though. No one deserved the hard-knock life of a mutant.

So it was time to kick some bad guy butt. Again.

Everyone already knew my answer before I even opened my mouth. "Alright. Let's go for it."

We were going to Amity Park.

* * *

 **The figure only watched** as the small form on the floor suddenly began to convulse, writhing in pain as they clenched their fists together and eyes bulged out. Their mouth opened in a scream that was muted by the tinted glass they were behind—

And then it stopped. The child's chest had stopped moving and their eyelids slowly fluttered closed, half-lidded. A telltale beep of the heart monitor suddenly resumed out. With a small sigh, the figure crossed something off of their clipboard. Another failure. And they had shown so much promise...

But this was vital information! The figure's white coat twirled behind them as they spun on their heels and begun to walk away from the observing room, allowing the other white-coated figures to rush forward and collect the mutated body. With the lisinopril added into the mix, it had increased the subject's life span by several days! This meant that the main issue was within hypertension, but the drug was not strong enough to keep the subject's blood pressure low enough after the last injection. Not only that, but a series of coagulants had ended up forming which had caused the thrombotic heart attack that ended the subject's life.

Perhaps adding a type of anticoagulant would solve the issue? Or a sirolimus to expedite the process? No, that would interact with the lisnopril, which would most likely end with an antagonistic effect, killing the victim quickly. So how about a-

"Head Pharmacologist?" The figure looked up, hearing their title crackle over the loud speaker system. "You are needed at Wing B. I repeat, Head Pharmacologist, needed at Wing B."

Ah. That was them. That was fine, they were already on their way to the wing anyway. The figure sidestepped other scientists rushing past with carts and papers, used to the mad rush of the laboratory.

When they reached the wing, the figure slid their keycard in a slot before pressing their finger against a scanner. There was a soft beep, a green light flashing before it swung open.

As the figure stepped inside, the temperature dropped low immediately. They paid no mind, allowing another scientist to reach forward and spray a strong disinfectant over them.

Everything was a sheen white, not a speck of dirt marring perfect walls and tiles. The figure quickly took their original lab coat off and deposited it into a bin cast off to the side. They draped a new one that was an exact copy of the last over their shoulders before proceeding.

"Ah, I was expecting you." The figure turned around, meeting the cool eyes of their fellow scientist. A woman with her dark hair up in a slick bun, glasses placed neatly over the bridge of her nose. "Come. The doctor would like to see you."

And so the figure followed through the rows of scientists lining silver tables and cabinets carrying a spectrum of vials. They eventually came to the end of the line, a man bent over a monitor and constantly typing away on the computer's keyboard.

The woman coughed slightly and the man glanced up to the figure. "I am guessing that the latest subject has ended in failure?"

The figure nodded, albeit slightly reluctantly.

The man sighed. "That is unfortunate. But I think we've located the root of our issue." The man motioned for the figure to come forward, and pointed to the charts they were looking over on the computer screen.

"Do you see that? The DNA structure is refusing to accept the injections we are giving them. Turns out that they have a defense mechanism of their own." The man said, running a single finger down the monitor and tracing the chart. "Do you know why we originally only took young infants?"

The figure immediately realized the issue. "Because they still had yet to form these defensive systems against the injections we were giving them…" They said slowly.

"Yup. In other words, the kids we are using are too old. But we can't use anyone else."

"So what do you suggest we do?" The figure said bitterly. "No matter what we do, if their body won't accept what we are trying to give them, we won't be able to make any progress!"

"Exactly. But luckily for us, I have a solution!" The man stood up, walking to a small vault pressed into the wall before keying in the code. With gloved hands they carefully lifted a small, single bottle out.

"Is that-?"

"Yeah. The one and only samples we have of our very first successful hybrids. The avian sample." The man said with a cheeky grin. He held it up to a light fixture, the glass reflecting against it. "Those kids refuse to accept anything that is non-human into their system, so why not try something that is half human, half animal?"

* * *

 _(A/N): This chapter was more of a rewrite than anything. Sorry if it bores you. The plot will begin branching off drastically next chapter._

 _This was written on my phone. In fact, most of the story will be written and posted using my phone. It's not the best editor, so please mind any errors!_

 _It's a bit disappointing how few stories there are for this crossover. They are both ridiculously similar to each other, so I thought "why not?"._

 _Where is Dylan? You'll see him later on._

 _In the future, an older me will be cringing and groaning at this work, face-palming at current day 12-year old me. That's unfortunate for older me, but I live to embarrass. Especially myself._

 _I hope you enjoyed! Please make sure to review, feedback and support is the bane of most writers._

 _~Parcentage_


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